


the rest of us

by mayyoursurvivalbelong



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Emotional story beats from other characters' perspectives, F/F, F/M, Fill-in-the-Blank Challenge, One Shot Collection, Step into someone's shoes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:42:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28140342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayyoursurvivalbelong/pseuds/mayyoursurvivalbelong
Summary: Collection of one-shots of different secondary characters' perspectives on various events from TLOU2 and maybe a little bit of TLOU1.Chapter Two: JoelJoel knew those eyes would haunt him until the day he died, and he was right.
Relationships: Abby/Owen (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Jesse (The Last of Us), Jordan/Leah (The Last of Us), Maria/Tommy (The Last of Us), Mel/Owen (The Last of Us), Nick/Nora (The Last of Us)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	1. Owen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Owen recounts one of the worst nights of his life.

When I was younger, I used to pester my dad with questions about the Old World. Any chance I got - a quiet moment alone with him in the mess hall, a long drive from one base to another - I’d wager a tentative “Hey, Dad?” and pray he was in a good enough mood to humor me. When he wasn’t - which was most of the time - he’d pretend he hadn’t heard me and we’d sit in silence until he changed the subject. But when he was, he’d fix me with his signature steady blue stare and wait for me to ask my question of the day. 

The day he died I’d asked him, in the morning over cold oatmeal, whether there was anything about the world’s current state that was better than the Old World. Whether he thought the world could be better still in years to come. Whether he truly believed, as I still did back then, that everything we had been fighting for my whole life would end up meaning something, one way or another. In the end. 

He hadn’t been in a good mood that day. My questions had hung in the air, sucking out all the oxygen from my lungs, unanswered. 

I only ever asked one other person those same questions. Asked them too early, too desperately - but he took pity on me and my mortifying sixteen-year-old naivety. His eyes looked nothing like my dad’s, they were dark and round and kind, but they contained that same soft seriousness that only those old enough to remember the Old World could really possess. A knowledge of what was lost. And, I hoped, what could be. 

Doc himself had only been twenty-eight when the CBI Outbreak first reached Utah. He had just returned from a three-week backpacking trek through Europe with his closest buddies, a trip they dubbed “The Last Hurrah” because Doc was to be married later that fall before moving to Tampa with his new wife to live in a shiny new house and work at a shiny new hospital as a shiny new surgeon. Little did they know, of course, that the trip was more aptly named because it would be the last time most of them would ever see each-other. 

He’d still believed in God then, he confessed to me once over an otherwise quiet night of incinerating the day’s dead in the morgue at Saint Mary’s (only six bodies - not a bad day by any means, in terms of numbers). But after the Outbreak he said he couldn’t forgive God for allowing what was happening to happen, and Doc eventually let go of any hope that there would be any God-given salvation for the human race or our souls. We were on our own. And, after even more time - he learned to let go of the guilt he carried for letting go of that hope, and instead focus on what humanity could achieve without divine intervention. 

“It was Abby, you see,” he said, so quietly the cavernous room almost swallowed the admittance completely. “Once she was born… I couldn’t risk putting my trust in God to protect her. I just...knew He couldn’t.” It made perfect sense to me, at the time. I, too, had felt a fierce and oftentimes terrifying need to protect Abby from anything that could possibly cause her harm. I often thought this was likely the reason Doc tolerated me so well. 

See, after Dad died - I was twelve - I requested a change of station. I’d been trained as a soldier practically since I could walk; we all were. My dad, my sister, all my friends. I’d carried a gun and known how to use it since I was six. Killed my first man at age nine. While the Fireflies were fierce about ensuring the younger generations would still receive a proper education alongside their field training, we all knew that once we were turned loose, whether or not we could aim and shoot would far outweigh the importance of anything they taught us in school. I recognized this a lot earlier than my peers, and I rebelled. I wasn’t prepared to be another grunt, and I certainly refused to be responsible for any of the more sinister goings-on the adult Fireflies thought we didn’t know about. Rumors spread like wildfire about exploding checkpoints, assassinated FEDRA officials and - worst of all - numerous instances of civilians caught in the crossfire. Lines were being muddled and crossed, our initial goals stained with innocent blood, and my heart was broken. I was granted the change of station - they weren’t about to deny me, having just lost my dad and all - and I began training as a combat medic. 

My sister, Kate, didn’t like it. She was six years older and way higher up the ranks than me, a lieutenant with her own squad to command. She knew what it was really like to be out there, and didn’t like the thought that I would be more focused on saving other people than myself when the time came. She, like so many of them, forgot what the Fireflies were supposed to be all about. She stopped looking for the light.

When I was fourteen, Kate was executed after being seized and tried as a terrorist by FEDRA troops while on a supply run in Colorado. Out of sheer fury, I once again requested a change of station. I was bloodthirsty. I wanted the heavy power of a big gun in my hands again. I wanted vengeance.

Thankfully, I was denied this time. The Fireflies needed medics now more than ever, and my tutelage under Doc rendered me invaluable. Through my work as a field medic - and in large part working with the ever-optimistic Doc - I learned to let go of that bloodlust, of my hatred for FEDRA and the CBI and everything else that made this world so despicable. Instead I focused on doing what I could to put a little good back into the world, even if it was just suturing off some guy’s slash wound after a skirmish or talking down some kid after committing her first kill. I really thought those little things - my goodness - made a difference.

It was naive. I know that now.

The day I asked Doc those three fateful questions about the Old World, months after our talk in the morgue, was also the day he died. It was the only day I’d ever felt a presence over my shoulder and wondered maybe, just maybe, Doc was actually wrong about something. God was there that night, and he was wicked.

That horrible night I’ll remember forever. They’d forced all us kids into the gastroenterology unit when the shooting started and locked us in. A grueling three hours followed with nothing so much as a whisper from anyone about what was going on three floors above us, and naturally we were all climbing the walls. We had guns and we had fury - but we were rendered completely useless when our parents and mentors and guardians were upstairs fighting the fight we had been preparing our whole lives for. Fighting for the end. Fighting for a cure. 

I was the one who pried the cover off the air duct and boosted Mel up into it - she was the only one small enough to fit. The confused glances I got from my peers were not nearly enough to deter me from my objective. Of the half-dozen teenagers in that awful room, Abby was not one of them. With no idea where she was, I would be damned if I put my faith in God or anyone else to protect her that night. 

After Mel unlocked the door from the other side and we all poured out, Manny and I had made a beeline for pediatrics. As we sprinted through the hospital, counting bodies as we went until we lost count - people we knew, people we’d just seen earlier that day at lunch time - my heart hammered in my chest so hard that it rattled my entire body. The immune girl was gone; that much we’d gathered from the scattered scraps of intel we’d overheard through discarded radios strapped to the hips of the dead we passed. It didn’t matter now. Doc mattered. Abby mattered. Nothing else did until I knew they were okay, until I knew they were alive.

Manny and I burst into the operating room and saw the bodies: three lifeless humps of sky-blue scrub. One crumpled in the corner, blood streaked on the wall from where he’d been shot and fallen over; one against the counter, her head caved in on one side; and Doc, sprawled and bleeding on the cold hard floor, a scalpel sticking out of his throat, his dark round eyes blank and staring at me.

The bloodlust came back in full force, so quickly and powerfully that I choked and gagged on it, doubling over to let my guts spill out with a strangled gasp. Manny’s shaking hand rested lightly on my back as he stared numbly at the scene before us. We remained still for quite some time, the wailing of the alarm the only sound besides my blood rushing in my ears as I fought for consciousness. 

“Who did this?” I choked out after what felt like eternity. I knelt by Doc’s head and, stupidly, felt around his throat for a pulse.

Manny was still staring mournfully at our fallen mentor. Our friend. “That smuggler. Must be. The one who brought the girl here. Puta madre!” he added, his voice breaking. He turned and slammed his fist into the nearest wall, cracking the weak plaster.

“Well, where is he?” I demanded, furiously blinking back my own tears. “Is he still in the fucking building?”

The door opened. “Is that -?”

My first instinct seized me by the gut, lifting me to my feet and towards her, arms reaching out to catch her. “Abby -”

She couldn’t hear me, couldn’t see me. “No -” She tried to push past me, push me aside, see around me. 

My hands gripped her upper arms. Tears spilled over, burning down my cheeks. “Abby, don’t look.” 

She looked. She saw. She screamed, screamed for her dad, and all I could do was hold her. We crumbled to the floor together and she stained my shirt with her tears. It was all I could do. I didn’t know what else. There was nothing else, nothing except the gut-wrenching sorrow and, then, the flood of sheer relief when I was finally able to process that Abby was alive.

Once it was clear that the smuggler and the girl were off the premises, the lockdown on Saint Mary’s was lifted. It was well past midnight by then, but everyone was wide awake, drifting around the hospital like ghosts as we carried out the half-hearted orders given to us. Us kids had been given the option to retire for the night, get some sleep, but most of us preferred to keep busy. Throughout the night the body count rose and rose, until it was easier to count the number of survivors. Of the two-hundred and thirty-six Fireflies stationed at Saint Mary’s Hospital prior to that night, only forty-seven remained. Total.

A few days later, the remaining Fireflies packed us orphans into their armored trucks bound for Washington, where we were to live under the care of some guy named Isaac, a former friend of Doc’s - the only remaining survivor of The Last Hurrah. We weren’t happy about it; the night before we were supposed to leave, a fight broke out between the generations. 

“We should go after them,” Manny snapped, standing insolently before a panel of tight-lipped officers who looked as exhausted as I felt. “They can’t have gotten far. We can still get her back, and we can kill that pendejo smuggler for good measure.”

“Doctor Anderson had all that research in his office,” Mel added, her small face red and puffy from hours of crying. “He told us what he was working on, maybe we could -”

“Enough,” Scott said firmly, holding up a hand for silence. He was Marlene’s second-in-command, the highest ranking Firefly still alive. He stood up slowly and approached us, one hand scrubbing at the back of his neck. “I know we have all been through an immeasurable loss. I appreciate that you all still have fight in you. It’ll make you invaluable to Isaac’s militia.” He paused for a moment, long enough to meet each of our eyes. The long years of fighting for survival had made him look older than he was; I think he was only in his forties. He sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, this decision is out of my hands. As of last night, the Fireflies no longer exist. We voted in favor of disbanding. Sending you to the WLF is your best chance at having a real community. A home.”

A strangled scoff turned all heads towards the corner of the room. To my great surprise, Abby was looking up from where she’d sat quietly for the past hour and a half, her red-rimmed eyes fixed pointedly at Scott. “You’re all a bunch of fucking cowards,” she spat, before standing a slamming her way out of the room, leaving the rest of us in stunned silence.

No one said a thing the whole first leg of the journey to Seattle. We knew it wouldn't help. By now we'd all seen our fair share of loved ones die. Most of us were orphans; some had an uncle or older sibling looking out for them, but parents often went first. Normally, a kid who still had one or even two living parents was regarded with jealousy and resentment, maybe even a morbid smugness once the kid's folks did inevitably bite the dust. There was no such sentiment towards Abby that day, though. How could there be, when in a weird sense it felt a little as though we had all lost a parent in Doc? He had been one of the few adults who truly believed in us, who didn’t just see us as teenaged hormone-ridden burdens of no value. He knew we were the future and wanted to make sure we knew it, too. Even the soldiers who hadn’t studied under him - Manny, Jordan, Nick - were forlorn, aware of what a great loss this was. 

Then there was Abby. At the time we’d all been too grief-stricken to notice, myself included I’m ashamed to admit, but looking back now I can see it clearly: the Abby I knew, the quiet, steadfast, sweet girl I’d fallen in love with, was gone, and likely would never return.


	2. Joel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joel knew those eyes would haunt him until the day he died. And he was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short one, but an idea that I couldn’t quite get out of my head.

“Who are you?”

“ _Guess_.”

But Joel doesn’t have to guess. He already knows.

In fact, as the first tear stubbornly spills onto Her cheek, which is still red from the cold outside, he sees Her face in a different place entirely - in a different time, as far away as Joel knows any semblance of help is now. Her face, but softer; Her eyes, wider; but Her hands just as steady as they are now, clamped firmly around a gun.

If he hadn’t turned to look one last time at Marlene’s body, at the blood blooming silently under her, he wouldn’t have seen Her. Maybe she would have shot him while his back was still turned. In any case, he did look, and he did see Her, crouched behind a white Mazda, with Her gun pointed squarely at his head. And she froze. So did he.

Fluorescent lights strobed painfully overhead. In the distance, he could hear shouting, the muffled squawk of a radio. He was out of time. Jesus, how was he supposed to know they had kids here? She couldn’t be much older than—

Ellie. Ellie, who was lying feet away in the back of the truck. Ellie, who they’d been about to cut open only moments before. Ellie, who they’d been willing to sacrifice without so much as a second thought—(for what? A _cure_? As if that would change anything. There would still be millions of Infected roaming around and factions trying and succeeding to kill each-other over territory, supplies, or otherwise.) Ellie, who, despite being a couple of years older, had been the same size as Sarah was in Joel’s arms as he’d bolted down empty hallways pursued by flashlights and gunfire.

A trembling lower lip. Wide eyes, familiar—full of fear, of accusation, of possibly a million other things. Things he’d heard only moments ago, said by someone with eyes shockingly like Hers. Things like: _I won’t let you take her. This is our future. Think of all the lives we’ll save._

He knew those eyes would haunt him until the day he died. And he was right.

He took his eyes off Her. He said nothing. He walked around to the driver’s side of the truck and climbed in, and though his skin crawled, he knew she wouldn’t budge. 

She is hardly moving now, save that same lower lip quivering ever so slightly. It’s Her, unmistakable. If he and Tommy hadn’t been running from a horde when he first pulled Her to Her feet outside the gondola hub, if he’d actually taken a good look at Her, he likely would have recognized Her immediately. Her face isn’t one easily forgotten, not to mention those eyes. But he hadn’t, and now he knows he’s going to pay the price. He takes in the faces of Her friends one at a time—kids, all. The same age as Ellie, Dina, Jesse, all the other kids back in Jackson. Hating him. A pack of wolves surrounding their prey.

He looks at Her now. And he’s angry. Angry that she found him _now_. Two days ago he had nothing to fight for. But five words gave him hope last night, less than twelve hours earlier— _I would like to try_. But he knew those eyes would haunt him until the day he died, and he was right.

He takes a deep breath. “Why don’t you say whatever speech you’ve got rehearsed,” he spits, “and get this over with?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> At this point I'll take suggestions for chapters... I already have several in mind but am looking for more!  
> Thanks for reading if you made it this far. This is my first time posting on this website so I am learning the ropes. More soon, I hope!


End file.
